D2r85's Personal Finance Blog

I'm thinking of buying a used car. I doing a lot of research of finding a cheap and reliable car. If anyone going to buy a car soon here are some helpful advise.

> Buy a fuel efficient car. Fuel it to costly to waste. Find a car that consume less petrol.
> Never buy a new car. Most of it value depreciates in the first year. Unless your rich or not going to sell it later on.
> Find out the full cost of owning that particular car.
- Registration
- fuel
- Stamp duty
- Repair costs
- CTP Insurance
- etc.
> Do a full inspection on a used car. Get a friend that knows about cars or a mechanic to check it
> Get a report on the repair and maintainance history of the used car
> Don't buy car under $1000. They are that cheap for a reason. You will be paying through the roof on repairs and maintenance costs.

Never buy a car by only thinking of the sale price. Buying a car is different than buying a things from a shop. You must think of full ownership and maintainance costs. Anyway that common sense.

I sold a few item on Ebay.
> Portable dvd player SOLD $80
> Motorola phone SOLD $100
> Digital Camera SOLD $150

Pretty happy with money made from my junk. If you have things that your don't want, you should sell them. Things depreciates in value over time and the longer you keep it the less value it worth. So find anything you don't want or not using and sell it. As the saying goes, one man junk is another man treasure. I think that's how it goes.
Best way to sell something it on the internet. As there more people to see it. You shouldn't sell them to shops such as cash converters. They pay you the least money.

Today I went to the city my Train. When I arrived at city station I saw a big crowed of people surrounding a pile of boxes. I decide to find out what was going on. They were giving free energy efficient light globe and water saving showerhead. I quickly got one of them for me.

I found out that Bankwest (Australia) was giving 6.4% on online saving account. This is increible. This rate is for the first 12 months. After 12 months it gives 5.7% interest. My current bank account is giving 5.9%.
I used an online calculator to see how much more money I would recieve if I change banks. With my balance I would recieve $20 more interest. I decide not to change banks as it would be to much of a hassle. As I would then have to change bank again after a year to get a better interest rate.

I started using a budget. I can't believe how much money I spend on food. I found out that I spend over $AUS25 on just food every day. Since I start using a budget it has really help me to decrease my spending and start saving more. I found this really cool budget spread sheet on the internet. I use it daily to store my daily spending. Here is the website for the budget spreadsheet if you want to try it.

I'm so happy today. My HSBC online saving account has got a interest rate increase. Original the interest rate was 5.7%. They have increase it to 5.9%. How cool it that!!. I live in Australia and last month the reserve bank had increase the interest rate. They have increase it by 0.25%. This is very bad news for people on a mortgage or some type of loan. But good news for bank savers as some banks increase interest rates on saving accounts. So anyone living in Australia that looking for a saving account I recommend you get a HSBC online saving account. Probably other countries have similar type of account. I have to 2 bank account with HSBC. One account is used for my daily spending. This account give my 4.75% interest. This account let you access your money through ATM, EFTPOS. They allow you to make unlimited withdrawels at HSBC atm's or 5 free withdrawel at othe banks atm's. Also you can withdraw money when using EFTPOS. I normally check my balance through interent banking. It is completely free. I don't pay any fees. My other account is mainly used to save. They now give me 5.9% interest. This is amazing!!. Anyway, anyone saving money at bank account should used an internet bank account. Depending on the bank these account offer you a high interest rate and have no fees.

I'm so excited that I doing my first blog. I hope that you visit my blog regularly. I will try to update it frequently. In my blog I will tell my personal money experiences. I currently have no job or study commitments so I have a lot of spare time on my hands. Probably next year I will go to TAFE and study programming or finance. Not sure which subject pick as I like them both equally. Anyway thanks for reading and please visit my blog soon.